Abu Hamed Mohammed Ein Mohammed, commonly called Algazel, a celebrated Arabian divine and philosopher, born at Tis in Khorassan, A.D. 1058. After studying at Nisapur and elsewhere, he settled at Baghdad, as a teacher of theology in the college of that city. After four years he embraced the monastic life, and retired to Mecca, where he spent many years in the study of philosophy and theology. Thence he travelled through Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, visiting Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Alexandria. He finally returned to Tis, and after some years retired to Baghdad, where he died, A.D. 1111.

Algazel was one of the most eminent and voluminous of Arabian writers. In his attempt to establish Mahometan theology on a philosophical foundation, he made himself obnoxious on the one hand to the orthodox Mahometans, and on the other to the followers of Aristotle. To the one he appeared as a heretic; to the other as a philosophical sceptic in the garb of a divine. In his celebrated treatise, entitled the Destruction of the Philosophers, he attacks the doctrines of Aristotle and the other Greek philosophers, attempting to show from their mutual want of agreement the uncertainty of philosophical principles, and the necessity of a refuge in religious faith. This was replied to by Avverous in his Destruction of the Destruction. A list of Algazel's numerous works on metaphysics, morals, and religion, is given in Casiri's Bibl. Arab. Hisp. Escur.